Associate Professor Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania
The process of crop domestication has led to dramatic phenotypic changes in plants, which have improved their cultivation in response to specific selection pressures exerted by humans. This artificial selection can inadvertently drive changes on non-targeted traits of crop plants, which can in turn impact how crops interact with biotic agents such as pollinators. In this talk, I will summarize the findings of several experiments that demonstrate that squash plants (Cucurbita spp.) and their specialist pollinators (Eucera spp.) have evolved in response to crop domestication and widespread cultivation. Overall, results indicate that the functional traits of squash flowers have shifted in cultivated species, and that, similarly, squash bees have undergone profound adaptive processes likely associated with their use of cultivated plants.